A Bit O'Graft
by Caerl
Summary: NWN2 OC Pre-Arvahn. A slow afternoon at the Sunken Flagon. Is Khelgar taking advantage of a naive farm girl? Is Neeshka playing the room? R&R please?


**A Bit O'Graft**

It was a slow afternoon. Qara set the plates on the table, sighed and sat down. Neeshka sat by the fire, reading a leather bound book; _A Tiefling in Paradise._ Khelgar and Duncan were in a discussion at a table by the bar. There were few patrons here at midday.

Shandra Jerro walked slowly into the taproom and stood in front of the dwarf's table. "Alright, barrel-house, you're on." she said, placing her work-worn hands on the tabletop.

Khelgar looked up, trying to hide his annoyance at the interruption. "So, you want to give it a try?" he asked gruffly. "It isn't an easy task. So far no one has been able to do it."

"How hard could it be?" she wondered aloud, "All I have to do is touch it, right?"

"That's it," affirmed the dwarf. "Ante is ten gold. Payback is double if you win the fight."

"Fight?" she asked, turning to look at the tiefling, trying to judge her chances, "Nobody said anything about a fight."

Khelgar rolled his eyes and shrugged; He had nothing to lose at this point. "You can take it or leave it," he said, winking at Duncan.

"Alright, I'll do it," Shandra said, thinking; _This will be the easiest twenty I ever made._

"Qara... Lass. To the front," Duncan said, raising his voice. She bent over him as he whispered in her ear, nodded and took the gold piece he offered. She returned to the table where Tiernah and Zhjaeve sat eating their noonday meal.

"Oh joy. I get to be the judge," she said without enthusiasm. "Maybe this time there'll be a real knock-down-drag-em-out fight. Not that I mind taking that skinflint's money." She nodded in Duncan's direction.

"Here we go again," said Tiernah, looking across the room at the tiefling. "Neeshka's the champ. Nobody has beaten her yet."

"I still do not understand the significance of this ritual," said the Gith cleric with lowered voice.

"It's about taking advantage of someone who should know better," Qara said crossly. "Maybe she'll get a good beating to go along with the lesson."

Shandra walked across the taproom toward the fireplace. There it was. Five and a half feet of luxurious tiefling tail. Just waiting to be touched. Watching Neeshka's back, she kneeled down and reached out. _Piece of cake,_ she thought, and grabbed at... nothing. The tail whipped up in the air, just out of reach. It pointed directly at Shandra's nose and settled slowly to the floor.

Neeshka picked up her mug and drank some cider, sniffed the air, then set it back down. She turned a page.

Duncan laid a gold coin on the table, raising his bet on Jerro. Khelgar placed one on top of it and smiled. There was now twenty two gold pieces on the table.

Shandra made two quick grabs at the tail. It danced out of reach each time, whipping to the left and right. It then whacked her smartly on the top of her head and again settled slowly to the floor.

"This is where it starts getting physical," observed Qara.

Everyone at the table where Tie and the Gith sat nodded knowingly.

Jerro triumphantly stood up and crossed the room to Khelgar's table with her hand out, palm up."Alright, pay up," she said with a smile.

Neeshka picked up her empty mug and tapped the rim with a neatly trimmed fingernail.

Qara took the mug, refilled it with cider and collected the coin lying on the bench. _At least the demon knows how to tip,_ she thought with uncharacteristic charity.

Khelgar was shaking his head, while Duncan was nodding. They were apparently at an impasse. They both looked across the room at Qara, who extended her fist and turned her thumb down.

"Why not?" Shandra asked in exasperation, glaring at the sorceress-turned-barmaid.

"You didn't touch it, the tail touched you. Now, if you'd have grabbed it," Khelgar said, looking at Duncan. "You would've won."

"Cheapskates," grated the fighter as she advanced on the wayward tail.

Khelgar covered two more coins that had appeared on the table. "The pot is now twenty six," he said, smiling at Duncan, who frowned and sat back in his chair.

Neeshka slowly turned a page in her book, feeling the tension in the room tightening.

"Round two," said Tiernah, under her breath.

With concentration knitting her eyebrows, fighter Jerro addressed the hated tail. Qara said,"Oh my," as Shandra slowly raised her heavily shod right foot and brought it down on the defenseless appendage.

THUMP.

No cry of pain.

She missed.

Qara could barely hold in the laughter that leaked around the hand she held to her mouth.

Thump. Thump. Thump...

"Look... she's doing a Waterdhavian hat dance," Tiernah whispered. "That Jerro sure is light on her feet."

Qara almost died with laughter. She couldn't breathe. Tears ran down her cheeks. She was laughing so hard. That farm girl was such a clown.

Almost insane with rage, Shandra pulled a dagger out and stuck it into the floor where the tip of Neeshka's tail had been just a second before. It took the frustrated fighter a few pulls to retrieve the blade.

The tiefling sighed, picked up her mug, drank, put it down. She turned a page.

A bar patron, joining Duncan on Shandra's side, put two copper coins on the table. Khelgar eyed him, shrugged, and covered them with two coppers of his own.

After missing numerous stabs with the dagger, Shandra had turned the floor under Neeshka's tail to splinters. With that, she had enough. Thoroughly disgusted, she sheathed her weapon, cutting herself in the process and stalked over to Khelgar's table.

"You miserable little dwarf," She hissed. "You set me up."

Khelgar put on a hurt expression and pointed at Duncan. "He set you up, lass. You let him down by losin'"

"Someday both of you will get what's coming to you," she finished, slamming the door as she left.

Khelgar looked up from raking the coins into a pile to see Neeshka hold out her hand, palm up.

She snapped her fingers twice and said, "My share."

Khelgar paid her.

A/N My thanks to _Llandaryn_ for pointing out my bi-polar voicing. _C._


End file.
